Water Lilies

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Date:

1906

Artist:

Claude MonetFrench, 1840-1926

About this artwork

“One instant, one aspect of nature contains it all,” said Claude Monet, referring to his late masterpieces, the water landscapes that he produced at his home in Giverny between 1897 and his death in 1926. These works replaced the varied contemporary subjects he had painted from the 1870s through the 1890s with a single, timeless motif—water lilies. The focal point of these paintings was the artist’s beloved ﬂower garden, which featured a water garden and a smaller pond spanned by a Japanese footbridge. In his first water-lily series (1897–99), Monet painted the pond environment, with its plants, bridge, and trees neatly divided by a fixed horizon. Over time, the artist became less and less concerned with conventional pictorial space. By the time he painted Water Lilies, which comes from his third group of these works, he had dispensed with the horizon line altogether. In this spatially ambiguous canvas, the artist looked down, focusing solely on the surface of the pond, with its cluster of vegetation ﬂoating amid the reﬂection of sky and trees. Monet thus created the image of a horizontal surface on a vertical one.

Paul Hayes Tucker, “Passion and Patriotism in Monet’s Late Work,” in New Orleans Museum of Art and Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Monet: Late Paintings of Giverny from the Musée Marmottan, exh. cat. (New Orleans Museum of Art/Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco/Abrams, 1995), pp. 37, fig. 10; 40.

Sold by Durand-Ruel, Paris, to Henri Bernstein, Paris, May 29, 1909, for 20,000 francs. [The transaction is recorded in the Durand-Ruel Paris, stock book, for 1901–13 (no. 9082, as Les nymphéas, paysage d’eau, série de 1906): “Sold to Henry Bernstein (the playwright) on 29 May 1909 for 20 000 F.,” as confirmed by Paul-Louis Durand-Ruel and Flavie Durand-Ruel, Durand-Ruel Archives, to the Art Institute of Chicago, Feb. 21, 2013, curatorial object file, Art Institute of Chicago. Also in this letter, the Durand-Ruel Archives notes that “the apparent chronological anomaly between the dates of the purchase and of the sale is not unusual.”]

On deposit from Durand-Ruel, Paris, to Durand-Ruel, New York, Apr. 1911. [The transaction is recorded in the Durand-Ruel, New York, deposit book for 1894–1925 (no. 7606, as Les nymphéas, paysage d’eau, série de 1906): “Sent on deposit to DR New York in April 1911 / NY Deposit no. 7606,” as confirmed by Paul-Louis Durand-Ruel and Flavie Durand-Ruel, Durand-Ruel Archives, to the Art Institute of Chicago, Feb. 21, 2013, curatorial object file, Art Institute of Chicago.]

Sold by Durand-Ruel, Paris, to Durand-Ruel, New York, Feb. 10, 1914. [The transaction is recorded in the Durand-Ruel, New York, stock book for 1904–24 (no. 3768, as Les nymphéas, paysage d’eau, série de 1906): “Purchased by DR New York on 10 February 1914 / Stock DR New York no. 3768,” as confirmed by Paul-Louis Durand-Ruel and Flavie Durand-Ruel, Durand-Ruel Archives, to the Art Institute of Chicago, Feb. 21, 2013, curatorial object file, Art Institute of Chicago.]

Sold by Durand-Ruel, New York, to Martin A. Ryerson, Chicago, Feb. 10, 1914, for $5,000. [The transaction is recorded in the Durand-Ruel, New York, stock book for 1904–24 (no. 3768, as Les nymphéas, paysage d’eau, série de 1906): “Sold to M.A. Ryerson on 10 February 1914 for $ 5 000,” as confirmed by Paul-Louis Durand-Ruel and Flavie Durand-Ruel, Durand-Ruel Archives, to the Art Institute of Chicago, Feb. 21, 2013, curatorial object file, Art Institute of Chicago. A purchase receipt on Durand-Ruel letterhead, dated February 10, 1914, details that this painting (no. 3768, Monet, Les nymphéas, paysage d’eau, 1906) was acquired by M. A. Ryerson, in addition to two other paintings (no. 3668, Monet, La cabane de douaniers, 1897, and no. 3646, Monet, Waterloo Bridge, London, 1903) for $20,000. Photocopy in curatorial object file, Art Institute of Chicago. This painting was on loan from Martin A. Ryerson to the Art Institute of Chicago, intermittently, by 1921, according to Museum Registration department artists sheets, on file in Museum Registration, Art Institute of Chicago.]